Outreach

Members of the Geophysics Section of DIAS are involved in a range of outreach activities, both locally and nationally, with students in schools and universities, teachers and the general public. Outreach activities allow us to share our enthusiasm for these subjects with the wider community.

We hope that our activities will encourage people to have a broader appreciation of Geophysics or other Earth Science disciplines. Currently our Outreach programme comprises four spokes:

Seismology in Schools: This programme facilitates National and Secondary Schools in Ireland with a seismometer and associated software to record and study earthquakes from the other side of the world in real-time. Students monitor the performance of the seismometer daily and upload any recorded earthquake data to the International Schools in Seismology website where it can be shared with other schools initially in Ireland, the UK, and USA. The experience of the Seismology in Schools pilot programme reinforces the idea that when science is relevant, learners become more engaged when they see how science is reflected in the reality of their own lives and by what they read in the media.

BT Young Scientist Exhibition: Every January, the Geophysics Section of DIAS joins the Geological Survey of Ireland in the ‘Eco Zone’. More to be added…

Applied Geophysics Undergraduate Module: The Geophysics Section of DIAS runs an intensive one week module for final year undergraduate geology students. The module is fieldwork based where students gain experience on using geophysical instrumentation, data collection, data analysis and interpretation. Aspects of the module comprise Gravity, Magnetic, Electrical & Electromagnetic and Seismic Methods of shallow scale geophysical exploration.

School Visits: Schools may organise short trips to the Geophysics Section for their students to meet ‘real life’ geoscientists in their workplace and also to experience the recording of earthquakes from around the world via the Irish National Seismic Network.

DIAS Geophysics are partners within the @eurovolc H2020 project where the first annual meeting occurred this week at the Volcano Observatory of the Azores Islands at the University of Azores in Ponta Delgada #eurovolc

With support from the @GeolSurvIE , €1.5m is being invested to expand and upgrade the Irish National Seismic Network (insn.ie) New funding will result in more stations, greater coverage & more accurate recording of earthquakes in Ireland. tinyurl.com/yb6ho2cp

Dr. Duygu Kiyan recently presented her work at the AGU Meeting in Washington, USA. Along with her colleagues, she is imaging Ireland's lithosphere using legacy and newly acquired magnetotelluric data across Ireland. @iCRAGcentre@DIAS_Dublin@GeolSurvIE@tcdastro

"Forecasting the Unpredictable: Earthquake science in a crowded world" by Prof. John McCloskey is DIAS's 2018 Statutory Public Lecture of the School of Cosmic Physics. Schrodinger Theatre, School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin, Wednesday Dec 12th at 18:30. Admission is free!

The field season of the DIAS led HERSK project started last week when Icelandic Met Office engineers transported seismic gear with skidoos onto Hekla volcano. The HEkla Real-time Seimic networK project
is funded by the GSI shortcall program and led by Martin Möllhoff at DIAS.

This inflation has critically stressed the rocks in the volcano, such that small local earthquakes are being triggered by the tiny ground shaking from large distant earthquakes in the surrounding Pacific ‘ring of fire’.

Geophysicists from DIAS have recently assisted the University of Edinburgh & the Instituto Geofisico at the Escuela Politecnica Nacional (IGEPN), deploy a network of seismometers at Sierra Negra, a large basaltic volcano in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.

#DIASDublin welcomed Mr. Yukiya Amano, DG of the International Atomic Energy Agency @iaeaorg today where, as a guest of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, he gave a keynote address on "IAEA: Atoms for Peace and Development". Retweeted by
DIAS Geophysics